Disney World Low Attendance Paradox

[Tom P.]

Actually that could be open for interpretation.

They’ve built a convention tower and all timeshares.

The reality is they would not have built a single room at rack designed for vacationing from the 2008 AoA rooms - which was mothballed 2001 pop - Until the mixed use fort wilderness rooms open.

Or about 15 years.

DVC is a license for you to pay their bills...so they would never stop that no matter what attendance goals are.

But they are - of course - looking for more attendance. We need to end amateur hour on this.

It doesn't change your overall point, but just a minor correction... Art of Animation actually opened in 2012, not 2008. So it would be 11 years, not 15.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

It doesn't change your overall point, but just a minor correction... Art of Animation actually opened in 2012, not 2008. So it would be 11 years, not 15.

I thought it was earlier

Either way I saw them break the ground for it in early 2001...either way

 

[correcaminos]

Did I come off as harsh again? Darn.

I apologize and agree with your point...spread is warranted. But contrary to many (not you) statements - there’s no desire for reduced attendance. The goal is balance and increase. It maximizes overhead and increase profits

You know I could have read the intent wrong too. I apologize if I did. Disney to me, cares about profits most too. I don't know if they care about number of attendance always going up, as much as profits increasing. Not to say that they want a huge decline. Though less people mean less employees they have to bring in. But yes, the balance does maximize profits and overhead. Makes life easier. Curious to know what numbers really are, but at least summer has felt less than it did 5-10 years ago.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

You know I could have read the intent wrong too. I apologize if I did. Disney to me, cares about profits most too. I don't know if they care about number of attendance always going up, as much as profits increasing. Not to say that they want a huge decline. Though less people mean less employees they have to bring in. But yes, the balance does maximize profits and overhead. Makes life easier. Curious to know what numbers really are, but at least summer has felt less than it did 5-10 years ago.

I’m sure their army of shrew number crunchers spend undoubtedly countless hours in “revenue analysis” (cough...early 2000s...cough)...

And there are two reasonable schools of thought on that.

“More from less” is the least likely path to success. It limits overhead...but doesn’t allow for large gains from boom periods of clientele.

The more likely plan - as with nearly all large Americans companies - is blasting through the bulk model for maximum net casting to ensure large raw revenues.

In 1955 that may not have been a possibility. But the Eisner regime absolutely built for large crowds. The problem is the overhead swells when that happens. So larger crowds are no longer a possibility - they are a requirement.

 

[wdwfan4ver]

What's curious is that even with SWGE open, Disneyland is at low attendance. Something's definitely up (or down, as the case may be).

Wonder if Disney finally priced themselves into a hole...

It is more than price for Disneyland. Disneyland for many years has a different clientele than Disney World according to what I read years ago. WDW gets more international guests than Disneyland does.

Disneyland also depends more on Annual passholders than WDW, but Disney blackout out those people till September I believe. Disneyland did something similar to their employees when it is not work day for them. The fact Disneyland's SWGE not getting there 2nd ride till January is going to hurt them.

 

[ChrisFL]

Another problem...Disney not offering discounts that people have come to expect and anticipate at this time of year.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Another problem...Disney not offering discounts that people have come to expect and anticipate at this time of year.

Nor should they.

This “Kohl’s pricing” nonsense is candy for the short attention spans. It’s eroding value and has been for years.

I screamed about this (I can’t anymore): do not swallow big increases because they give you a coupon to apply to them.

But especially in Florida - that’s what they did. Price went up by 10% every year for a decade and people begged for more.

And the Dutch door swung back and now the prey and the predator both have a problem.

Who’s to Blame? Both.

Don’t feed the animal...and be an intelligent consumer.

 

[ChrisFL]

Nor should they.

This “Kohl’s pricing” nonsense is candy for the short attention spans. It’s eroding value and has been for years.

I screamed about this (I can’t anymore): do not swallow big increases because they give you a coupon to apply to them.

But especially in Florida - that’s what they did. Price went up by 10% every year for a decade and people begged for more.

And the Dutch door swung back and now the prey and the predator both have a problem.

Who’s to Blame? Both.

Don’t feed the animal...and be an intelligent consumer.

I don't disagree....the problem is once you start doing discounts like this, people start to expect it.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

I don't disagree....the problem is once you start doing discounts like this, people start to expect it.

Of course they do...it’s immaturity.

Just like Clark Griswald writing the check for the pool

 

[Josh Hendy]

I like to look at @lentesta Touring plans numbers. It is really worth the cost of a subscription. Without giving too much away, based on his predictions and actual observations, there clearly has been a noticeable slow down for late spring and summer. It even appears that winter and early spring crowds outperformed the current period. Total reversal of crowd distributions.

This is really non-scientific but ... from following several WDW-related users on Instagram, I also noticed what appears to be low crowd levels in many of their pictures and videos. Since sometime in the spring.

 

[MAGICFLOP]

The lower attendance could be a combination of many factors... mostly the economy...

Perhaps starting 2008 when the economy tanked people certainly reduced their vacations to local places.. then as the economy got better, these people finally said they wanted to make trips to WDW and now they got that out of their blood and have moved on to others places..

All of us in here are not normal visitors to WDW, most people go once or twice in their life, the people in here go once or twice a year. I feel that the increase in attendance is not people like us.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

This is really non-scientific but ... from following several WDW-related users on Instagram, I also noticed what appears to be low crowd levels in many of their pictures and videos. Since sometime in the spring.

There were reports of lighter crowds last fall and most of this year...

And the battle lines were drawn:

Those disgruntled want it to mean that they’ve really screwed up and prices have plateaued.

The defenders say nothing is wrong.

The truth is somewhere in the middle of that field. So we watch.


The one thing that gets too much trust is that “increased revenues” in quarterlies means there isn’t a an attendance problem.

Not at all...there could be a big problem here. They’ve raised prices at such a steep climb that it’s near impossible not to have revenues up even with flat or sliding attendance.

The problem is a recession. They have no protection against one. Cause bob with have his chute deployed then.

 

[DuckTalesWooHoo1987]

We never have fall breaks here, but I know many do. Same with winter breaks in Feb. I'd rather get out earlier in the year than have all these breaks.

I think adding in more festivals brings people too and lower prices. People take kids out of school now too without worry. We're happy with our summer and early spring break travel. Higher points (DVC) for us but it's worth it.

Yeah we actually send our kids to private school and it's much more flexible for our Disney trips with pulling them out when it's more convenient for us from a DVC standpoint. Also I'm super pumped that they might FINALLY be gonna build a sidewalk from the Grand Floridian to MK. That was the ONLY drawback to the VGF for me and I've told people that my "favorite attraction in all of Disneyworld is the sidewalk from Bay Lake to the MK". LOL! I really hope that becomes a reality! All of our points are at BLT but we go 3 times a year and I'd for SURE do at least one of those stays at VGF if they'd make that walkway.

 

[DuckTalesWooHoo1987]

In no way do they want diminished crowds for one single minute. Come on, now...let’s stop with this, please? Common sense test.

October sucks, frankly...they should have extended hours...instead they cut them and do silly upsells.

Never again
May is typically a slow month...maybe the best month on the whole

Oct used to not be that bad but September is WAY better. I think all the "free dining plans" and all that crap also add to the headaches of that time of year. Although they do free dining plans and Halloween Parties in Sept also. It's just there are enough kids with no school breaks them to make things much more manageable. September is part of the lowest season for our DVC points and Oct has always been the second best season, according to Disney, but I really think they need to readjust that.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Oct used to not be that bad but September is WAY better. I think all the "free dining plans" and all that crap also add to the headaches of that time of year. Although they do free dining plans and Halloween Parties in Sept also. It's just there are enough kids with no school breaks them to make things much more manageable. September is part of the lowest season for our DVC points and Oct has always been the second best season, according to Disney, but I really think they need to readjust that.

DVC? What’s that?

 

[DuckTalesWooHoo1987]

DVC? What’s that?

Disney Vacation Club.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Disney Vacation Club.

Like the newsletter?

 

[DuckTalesWooHoo1987]

Like the newsletter?

LOL! Not exactly. More like a Disneyworld Fan Club that comes with a 50 year membership.

 

[bUU]

Your blind faith in management is admirable.

It's not blind faith in management. Rather, it is informed knowledge and decades of experience seeing how often random, anonymous complainers on the Internet - without proof of experience as leaders of multinational corporations, credentialed expertise in the management of large businesses, or even research data to definitively back up their complaints - are wrong when they criticize professionals doing their jobs with benefit of experience, expertise and data, especially when those criticisms (oh how conveniently) are sob stories about how their own personal preferences aren't being stroked by way of decisions that are actually best for the owners of the company.

 

[bUU]

Do you work for Disney or own Disney Stock?

The latter through funds.